Which is worse: Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey?
In a comment to my post yesterday on Fifty Shades of Grey, Kyle asked the important question that is the title of this entry. In my response to him, I copped out and declared the two a tie.
That's clearly not good enough. If I'm going to besmirch not just one but two movies based on books that millions and millions of people love, I ought to be willing to face the tough questions. The only fair way to do this is to compare key points of the movies.
Length: Twilight clocks in at 2:02, while Fifty Shades piles on an extra three minutes and hits 2:05. With movies this bad, every extra minute is a lash from an incompetent dominant, so Fifty Shades is the worse on this front.
Plot: Sure, both are stupid beginnings to inane trilogies, but because the question is about only these first movies--and those are all I've seen--we have to restrict the comparison to just what happens in these two. In Fifty Shades, we have a boring love story that makes no sense at any turn, but few film love stories do. In Twilight, we have sparkly vampires and werewolves who imprint on their love-mates and, well, you get the point: Twilight carries far and away the worse plot.
Acting: Assume here that we must use this term for the performances in the films; don't grouse at me that no one acted at all. I'm going to stick to the two leads in each case. In Fifty Shades, we have Jamie Dornan doing his best impression of a sad gray sofa in a Bronx heroin den, but at least you can tell it's a sofa. In Twilight, Robert Pattinson manages to be nearly invisible, even while sparkling, in a performance so bad I believe my memory actually contains blanks spots where he should be. Similarly, Kristen Stewart's only acting achievement in Twilight was to piss off all sensible viewers, while I have to grant that Dakota Johnson had two whole acting moves and was frequently recognizable as human. For worse acting, Twilight wins going away.
Creepy factor: Mid-twenties billionaire Grey falls for boring woman something like five years younger (no, I'm not willing to research the exact difference), and definitely out of college. Yeah, he's supposed to be a dominant, but his few kink acts are so tame that you'd find more sexual heat in Julia Child dressing a chicken. In Twilight, Pattinson is over a hundred years old and becomes infatuated with a high-schooler. Twilight once again wins by a mile.
I could go on, but I believe the answer to Kyle's question is abundantly clear: Twilight is far and away the worse of the two movies.
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5 comments:
As a heterosexual male who has had to listen to women complain about boring martial art flicks I feel the need to say something to you that I would never tell them. In these movies your opinion doesn't matter. At least I assume it's probably the same. Just a heads up if you saw it with your woman. Being on the other side of it whether the movie was good or bad, well, that s#1$ can get annoying.
-rehcra
I accept that it does not, but just as I don't mind anyone criticizing the many bad flicks I enjoy, I feel these two are fair game. I do, though, take your point, and I try not to bring up movies in person unless someone asks.
Shudder, so far I have managed to avoid either.
Oh my, such an Edward hater. I admit that Twilight is wading into the shallow end of the Oscar pool, actually it isn't even in the pool area, but I like my vampires sparkly. I can't speak for Fifty Shades as I doubt I will see it, the books were tough enough to get through. But, c'mon, cut the hot vampire a little slack. He does have a lovely brooding look, albeit, his only look, but still.
Good choice, John.
Anonymous, sorry, but I can't cut Edward any slack.
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